Oh, Maryland's newest attempt at a money grab on its citizens is to tax rain runoff. Because it drains into the Chesapeake (eventually). And they claim to want the money for the environment. Something similar happened in Virginia, it was taken to court, and it was determined that you can't call rain water a pollutant and tax it, so it's not like we haven't seen this attempted and fail due to logic. It also totally ignores that some of the tributaries go up to New York state. Not every county is run by a massive idiot though, one county's head vetoed against it, one is just charging everyone $1. Oh and the intended rates are so high, that, for businesses with parking lots, the rain tax would be twice as high as their damn property tax. They haven't quite worked out a way to not drive them all out of business for the damn rain, but they plan to change the numbers so they aren't charged 3x their current property tax. Clearly this tax plan was not thought through, which is a fantastic reason for our terrible governor to go ahead and pass it anyway. And is why some of the intelligent counties are against this. I don't think I live in an overly intelligent county though. They plan to use google maps to decide what to charge you btw (apartments and town houses will get one flat rate if this absolutely retarded idea goes through, something less than $50 a year), but seriously, get out of our pockets. They increased the bridge toll from $4 to $6, then have been hesitant about launching an investigation into its safety after a car went over the guardrail last week (the girl survived, luckily). I'm now trying to remember if this is the state that threw a $100 fried chicken dinner just to waste educational money.

But yeah, I'm not a big fan of living in Maryland. Otakon is like, the one highlight to living here and I am going to enjoy it, dammit! At least only the city increased the already not working bottle tax from 2 cents to 5 (and only the city has that stupid tax)

Eh, probably, my manga backlog doesn't tend to ever be as big or weighty as my anime backlog. That's because I'm more likely to pick the manga because I think it's faster to get through it, and I can stop whenever if an errand comes up or something. But this year, on Monday after Otakon, I'm going up to New Hampshire with my sister. Our uncle just got his shoulder replaced and needs some assistance with stuff, and it'll be great to see him! And eat the fresh veggies from his garden! Then I'm back at my sister's place watching her cat for 5 days, so I'll finally get manga/anime time then. Seeing how I got pretty much all of my Otakon spending money from her, I've kinda already been paid to watch her diabetic devil cat. My own cat is going to miss me dearly, as will I her.

My wish list this year isn't as big as it normally is. Like maybe I've caught up to things I want to buy? And didn't discover as many new ones as I usually do? There's chunks of like 4 older series I'd like to get more of. Most of my new things, I either got the newest volumes already, or they're one-shots (hooray, Vertical booth! Twin Knight is clearly on my list! I hope they have those nice canvas bags again for purchases of $25 or more, I could always use another nice canvas bag!) After I prioritized my list, there's maybe 20-25 volumes that are must gets. Compared to 50 in the years before.... There's maybe that much total on this list this year. My anime wish list is perhaps a bit longer than usual, but most of it is cheap stuff that's been out for a while. And I simply cannot resist putting bad anime (and manga this time too) on my list because Art of Fighting is on my anime list and Apocalypse Zero (the 6 vols that were released) is on my manga list. Apocalypse Zero was just such a special kind of awful that I'd, for some reason that I cannot quite identify as anything other than brain damage, I want more. My shame is great.

But this year, there's some art books I really want to get too. I hope a booth will have Basara artbooks at least (never did find that Hikaru no Go artbook I wanted last year either, but I do remember seeing a Basara one somewhere, I just didn't actually read Basara until this past January) there's one with a red cover and one with a green cover, I want them both. And the other Baby & Me artbook (I got the one cus it was $10 on ebay). And the Legend of Korra artbook, but I might just order that online after the con. If I can find a Steins;Gate wall scroll, I want one of them too. I also need to find a new tin to keep future 3DS games in, that's actually fairly high priority, I usually don't put things that aren't manga or anime on a priority that high, but I really do need it. I find them very handy, but do not have one for the upcoming handheld generation. I also want three cell charms, new ones for my GBASP and DS, and one for my future 3DS. Might get them in the artist alley. Try to limit myself to one Pokemon charm.

It's finally house cleaning time here. Otakon tends to force us to do household projects, so I spent like 4 hours on thursday cleaning the old caulk off the bathtub (bathtub/shower). My mom said she cleaned the kitchen today, which is nice. When I go back tomorrow (watching my sister's cat, again, though on the plus side, I can use her shower), it'll be right to work! Through Wednesday, probably! I'm currently deciding how best to torture my friends staying over. Do I got with Eiken? Apocalypse Zero? Tokyo Gore Police? Mad Bull 34? I've already used Garzey's Wing....

Are you guys going to the ANN panel? Panel 6, Friday at 3pm, for me, it doesn't interfere with any other panels I want to go to and I should have had adequate time in the dealer's room by then. I still have Psycho's number actually. However, I have a very bad memory for faces and cannot for the life of me remember what any of you look like.Any other panels you guys plan to go to? I want to go to the worst anime of all time, i love the 80s, the Vertical panel, and Digimon panels for sure.

Any word on when Otakon 2014 will take place? There's another convention called AnimagiC that I plan on going to later this year. AnimagiC will take place August 1-3. I'm not sure if there's going to be a conflict between the two and I may try to go to both if there's not, provided I have enough money to make both, which would be pretty difficult.